ABSTRACT
At British military trials for Japanese war crimes in the aftermath of the Asia-Pacific War, 39 wartime interpreters associated with the Japanese military were prosecuted. This chapter presents their backgrounds, recruitment process and wartime duties. Excepting three with military rank, the accused were all civilian interpreters mostly of Hokkien (a Chinese dialect subgroup), Malay and English. Although 21 defendants were initially recognised as Japanese and 18 as Taiwanese, many had complex and diverse backgrounds, which reflected historical contexts such as Japanese imperial ambitions, transnational movement and anti-Japanese sentiment in North America at the time. Over 40% were recruited, forcibly or otherwise, in Japanese-occupied territories, and most worked as temporary interpreters. Thirteen Taiwanese were mobilised as Japanese colonial subjects and mostly assigned to Kempeitai and police in Malaya. The English interpreters enlisted in Japan included those who were born or had lived for a long time in North America. The accused interpreters worked in hostile and violent settings in various locations in Asia under Japanese military occupation, mostly for the investigation, arrest and interrogation of anti-Japanese elements by the Kempeitai, police and occupation forces, as well as the daily operations and forced labour at prisoner-of-war camps.
